Dr. Greene’s Organic Rx — Item #7

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Published: March 8, 2007

#7 Apples

Consistently named as one of the most pesticide-contaminated fruits and vegetables42, apples make my list because they are more popular than the other fruits and vegetables on the list. Thus, choosing organic apples can make a big difference both in lowering your family’s pesticide exposure and in using our consumer power to change agriculture.

In 2005, apples were the second most commonly eaten fresh fruit (after bananas) and the second most commonly used in fruit juice (after oranges) 43, making them the biggest pesticide concern among fruits. Apples are a major source of our exposure to organophosphate pesticides, which some studies suggest are linked to decreased intelligence and increased attention problems in kids44, as well as changes in hormone levels for some adults45. Thankfully, we’re making progress with apples, with more than 3.33% of U.S. apple orchards already organic46.

When I was in medical school, I was taught that the apple is nature’s “junk fruit”, containing only about 6 mg of vitamin C, some fiber, and not much else of value. Since then we’ve learned that apples are powerhouses of antioxidant activity47. Since I was in medical school, thousands of “new” phytonutrients have been discovered in fruits and vegetables, including in apples. Many of the phytonutrients found in apples, including quercetin, catechin, phloridzin and chlorogenic acid, are strong antioxidants48.

Apples were never at fault, our tests were. Vitamin C wasn’t discovered until 1928. In 2003, a new set of healthful polyphenols were found in apples49. Now we know that each apple has the effect of about 1500 mg of vitamin C – but it gets this from the related compounds in the apple, not the simple version of vitamin C that used to be all we could measure. Organic apples have been found to have higher levels of these polyphenols and other phytonutrients. As an added bonus, in taste tests organic apples taste better than their conventional counterparts50.